Lamego and around

Although technically in the Beira Alta region, the charming town of LAMEGO, 11km south of Régua, is easily accessible from the Douro, with which it shares a passion for wine – in this case, Raposeira, Portugal’s answer to champagne. It’s overlooked by the fine Baroque shrine of Nossa Senhora dos Remédios – another of those decorative Portuguese stone stairways to the skies – which plays host to an annual pilgrimage from late August to early September. There are scores of noble manor-houses in the handsome town centre, and a series of extraordinary churches, monasteries and fortified buildings in the surrounding verdant valleys, a legacy of the twelfth-century Reconquista, when Lamego was among the first towns to be retaken from the Moors.

Much of Lamego’s early wealth derived from its position astride a valuable trade route from the Beiras to the Douro, but the town’s real importance stems from its history: in 1143, Lamego hosted Portugal’s first parliament, when a group of clergy and noblemen assembled to recognize Afonso Henriques as the nation’s first king. As such, Lamego lays claim to being the birthplace of both country and crown – a fact hotly disputed by Afonso Henriques’ birthplace, Guimarães.

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The Entrudo dos Compadres at Lazarim

The unremarkable village of Lazarim (off the N2 Lamego–Castro Daire road) plays host to one of the oddest rituals to survive in Portugal. The Entrudo dos Compadres is a boisterous carnival that has taken place every Shrove Tuesday since the Middle Ages, with cavorting revellers taking to the streets wearing beautifully carved wooden masks, symbolic of the event’s licentiousness. From a balcony, two colourful dolls loaded with fireworks are presented to the crowd – the compadre, carried by two young women, and comadre, toted by two young men. The couples proceed to recite insulting rhymes centring on sexual behaviour, after which the fireworks are lit and the dolls disintegrate in an explosive fury of smoke and flame, marking the end of the old year and the beginning of the new.